This article is published in number 23 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until June 8, 2021
We Sicilians have an irrepressible taste in ironically instilling doubt in the certainties of others, especially when they are fallacious. So, if I asked a non-Sicilian what he would visit in Sicily, I already know what he would answer me; would list the cities of art and culture, monuments, food, scenic beauty, the sea and the other thousand treasures of the region. But, certainly, it would not indicate among the magical places a central, harsh area, where the earth is indomitable and you cannot breathe that sea air so associated with Sicily: it is called Enna, an area that seems to look with superiority to the rest of the island. It had been appealed by the Romans navel of Sicily because, in this apparently different place, there are ancient myths that intertwine with contemporary stories that summarize the characteristics of my island. Sicily is often described as a land of passion. In fact, here, between a lake and a museum, passion has resulted in kidnappings and returns, between legend and reality. In a fraction of Enna there is Lake Pergusa, the last natural in Sicily, where oaks, eucalyptus trees and white vilucchi give refuge to migratory birds, and which gives the setting to the myth of Proserpina.
In the Roman version, Ovid recounts that such was the beauty of the girl that Pluto kidnapped her and took her to the Underworld, certain that his brother Jupiter would have protected him. But the goddess Ceres, mother of the nymph, unleashed such a drought on the island that the father of the gods had to comply with her will, forcing Pluto to let the young woman free for six months every year so that Ceres could embrace her again. The first great rapture of love was born here, and here the tradition of abductions and returns continues, between myth and reality, albeit no longer fortunately for real women but goddesses, such as the Venus of Morgantina. Goddess who takes the name of the archaeological site from which she was stolen, is a statue with a fate similar to that of the nymph. Sold in 1986 at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Enna Court then sentenced the fence, forcing the museum to return it. Like a modern Proserpina, Venus has returned home, now exhibited in the Aidone Museum, to remind us that this land does not forget a lost son. Sicily is a land of belonging and passion, where myth and history teach us the memory to look to the future.
In the photo: The Adduction of Proserpina by Alessandro Allori (1535-1607)
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